2013 Western States 100 Prediction Contest

Welcome to iRunFar’s fifth annualWestern States 100 prediction contest! Montrail and Mountain Hardwear are once again supporting the contest with great prize packages going to the top-three prognosticators. Not only will Injinji be awarding socks to the three winning pickers, they’ll be giving out 20 MORE pairs of Injinji socks to random contest entrants!

The Basics*
The rules are the same as they’ve been the previous four years. You select, in order, your top 8 picks in both the men’s and women’s field. Points are accumulated based on the difference between a runner’s projected placing and their actual placing. (Placing is gender specific.) Given the reality that some top runners will drop out, only your five most accurate picks per gender will count. All DNSs and DNFs will be scored as if the runner placed one spot behind the final finisher. Your goal is to have the fewest total points among your 10 scoring runners (5 men and 5 women).

Here’s an example of how points are awarded for a single pick. If I pick Dylan Bowman for fifth man and he wins, I’d accumulate 4 points (|5-1|=4). On the other hand, if I pick Bowman to place fifth and he finishes as ninth man, I’d again accumulate 4 points (|5-9|=4). I’d get the same 4 points even if he’s beaten to the track by an additional woman.

Ties will initially be broken by the lowest number of points accumulated from the contestants’ picks for the men’s and women’s masters winners. (You can choose masters winners who you previously chose to place top 8 overall.) If a tie remains, the accuracy of picks of the overall winners will be the second tie-breaker. Any persistent ties will be resolved through a random drawing.

While anyone can enter the prediction contest, the Montrail/Mountain Hardwear prizes will only be awarded to folks with US or Canadian mailing addresses. That said, we’ll do our best to reward any winners from further abroad.

The contest will close at 6 pm PDT on Wednesday, June 26. That’ll give me time to, once again, analyze all your picks for a group analysis prior to the race.

To follow all of our Western States coverage, subscribe to iRunFar via RSS or via email. In addition, following us on Twitter will insure that you receive all of the live coverage we provide before, during, and after the race! On race day, we’ll also have a Live Coverage page with additional insight and commentary as well as an open discussion.

The PrizesAs noted above, Montrail and Mountain Hardwear are once again providing great products to give away. To start, first and second place will receive their choice of a pair of Montrail shoes. Those top-two places will also receive their choice of one of Mountain Hardwear’s running bottoms, for example the men’s Ultrafueler Short II or the women’s Ultrapacer Short II. In addition, the grand-prize winner will take home a shirt from Mountain Hardwear’s Way2Cool line (men or women). Third place will win a Montrail hat to sport along with their choice of Montrail recovery shoes.

This year, we’re very excited to add Western States race sponsor Injinji to iRunFar’s WS100 prediction contest. Not only are they giving a pair of Injinji Trail 2.0 toesocks to each of the three winners of the prediction contest, they’ve also thrown in 20 more pairs of Trail 2.0 toesocks to be awarded at random to lucky entrants who give the contest an honest attempt. (Trust me, I’ll know an honest attempt when I see one! ;-) )

You’ll also get fame. As proof, we’ll once again recognize last year’s winners, as they topped more than 450 entries. Nice work guys! 1st: Chris Payton, 2nd: Jonathan Seiber, 3rd: Leah Fein. For those who are interested, here are the results of last year’s contest as well as the “group-think” predictions the contest entries provided before the race.

The Contest
[Entry in the prediction contest is now closed.]

*The Details
Only one entry per person. If you enter early and wish to change your picks before the deadline, you may replace those picks – please just use the exact same name and email address on subsequent entries. We suppose you don’t need to make all 18 picks, but be aware that a non-pick will be treated the same as a DNF. You can only choose a runner once per gender, but you can pick someone like Dave Mackey to place overall and win the men’s masters category. No hedging bets, finding loopholes, or other funny business; we reserve the right to invalidate any entry that doesn’t follow in the spirit of fairness.

The Hints
We know that many people will be publishing posts with their Western States picks. In an effort to help you, the iRunFar reader, to make the best picks, we’ll be providing you with others’ publicly-published picks as we become aware of them. However, you’ve got to do the reading on your own… we’d recommend it as some top entrants will not be running the race. That’s the only hint we’ll give here.

Here at iRunFar, we’ve published our men’s and women’s previews and will be publishing a slew of interviews in the coming days; and

The Closing
If you want to talk through your ideas before making picks, go for it. For those wishing to go public on their predictions, please leave some or all of your picks in a comment after making your official selections. Go ahead, put your mouth where your mind is! Want to talk some smack about your predictions or your race… we welcome it!

Well, Ryan Sandes and Neal Gorman pulled out only somewhat recently and other Top Ten contenders are publicly on the fence as to starting due to illness or injury. At an ultra with this many top contenders, there will always be some last-minute withdrawals.

Wasn't sure if there were any others (everyone I've had contact with seems to be in amazing shape). Or if I was one of the people on the fence – I was 2 weeks ago when I sprained my ankle but now have tested it enough that it shouldn't be an issue.

Also, props to the VHTRC Bull Run Run Pick-the-Winner contests of yore. My enjoyment of those contests gave rise to this contest.]-@ Bryon awesome stuff I' ve been member of that club going on 2 years now. Cool shout-out. Hey any word whether Mackey pulled out I thought I read he was contemplating pulling out but he was running a 50 miler a few weeks ago?

So would this be considered hedging one's bets? For example, what happens if I someone puts Morton ahead of Mackey in the overall standings but has Mackey as the Masters winner? I know the rules say no hedging bets, but there will almost certainly be multiple people doing something to this effect (albeit not on purpose).

Looks like I'm not alone in hoping to see my picks via email. Any chance I can get them as well? Should've written them and I remember most but not the full order, ugh! Looking forward to following live.